Blizzard posts for December 12th include thoughts on reputation catch-up mechanisms, replies to a tab-targeting question, and thoughts on how to improve PTR communication. \r\rPTR communication has been a hot topic since 7.1.5 launched with many class changes and a lack of blue posts or patch notes. To make up for this, Blizzard recently devoted a Q&A to 7.1.5 class changes as an experiment, but that wasn't ideal either; every spec only got a few minutes and some players were interested in more general topics while others wished more time was spent on details. There was also confusion surrounding secondary stats; the community knew changes were coming for several weeks, but when the revamp hit the PTR, only two out of the three parts of the revamp were testable.\r\rDuring the Legion beta, Blizzard also published "Class Notes" which helped highlight important changes for testers and supplemented the raw datamining. These Class Notes have not been present during the PTR and since not all specs receive their changes at once, players have been struggling to piece the overall picture together for classes.\r\rSome ideas suggested as improvements include AMAs to better address spec-specific discussions, an increased forum presence, and Class Notes to explain the highlights of PTR builds again.\r\r\r\rReputation and Catch-Up Mechanisms\r\rIn Mists, we have an awesome system where you could send tokens that doubled the rep earned for alts. Im not asking more than that. Just something, the system even already exists.\r\rPlease, dont make alts more harder than it already is. (and rerolls too)\rWe talked about this idea briefly on the Q&A the other day, but I'm interested in hearing more feedback. What do you feel you need access to that's locked behind a reputation for your alt? Most of the "big" unlocks - e.g. World Quests, access to Suramar dungeons - are now account-wide.\rSo, let me clarify my thoughts a bit, and why I asked for specifics:\r\rQuite often, we see feedback that focuses on the solution instead of the problem. That's not a bad thing (in fact, it's quite natural and in many ways polite for someone who's trying to be helpful to suggest a fix for a problem), it's just that it occasionally means we have trouble tracking down what the actual core issue is that's causing you to present that solution.\r\rLooking specifically at this topic: many of you are suggesting the MoP-style rep tokens as "the right fix." And maybe it is! But if we were to implement something like that, we need to know what it's fixing, because we might have a better way to solve the same problem. Or maybe we don't see it as a problem at all.\r\rTo use a dumb analogy, because I love analogies: say your roof has a leak, and every time it rains, water drips down through your ceiling and your carpet gets wet. You could keep a pot nearby that you put under the drip when it rains - that'd certainly solve the issue of damp carpet - but it's kind of inconvenient, and the leak is still there. It'd be a much better solution to fix the roof, so the leak stops happening entirely.\r\rOr, you know, maybe you're actually in a gazebo and the carpet is supposed to get wet because it's weather-resistant and... okay, so this analogy isn't perfect. But hopefully I at least illustrated why I asked for specifics: maybe the solution is that the thing you want via rep should just be account-wide. Maybe it's already supposed to be account-wide, but there's a bug. Or maybe having to gain the reputation on your alt is an intended part of playing a second character.\r\rThis is mostly just me musing - there's some great info in this thread already that we can definitely talk about - but I thought it might be interesting or helpful to clarify.\r\r\rPTR Communication and Feedback\r\rSome good feedback here. I'll try to address your points as best I can.\r\rOn Twitter: Disagree that it's always the wrong approach, but it's definitely not always the right approach either. 140 characters is a blessing and a curse - it's harder to get a complete point across sometimes, yes, but it also forces things to be presented more concisely, which is great for certain types of feedback. We're not going to stop using Twitter, but we're continuing to learn about when it's not the right platform.\r\rAlso just as an aside, every account other than @WarcraftDevs should be treated as someone's personal account and not as the correct place to provide feedback or look for answers. That also means that it's completely their choice if they decide to mute or block someone. \r\rOn the Q&As: I agree that the experiment in the last one to answer more spec-specific questions didn't go well. I honestly don't think the live Q&As are a good way to answer those questions at all. Even if we were to somehow narrow it down to only "legitimate" questions (aside: what criteria determine "legitimate" anyway?), there's far more to answer than we can possibly fit into one Q&A, so we're always going to leave something out.\r\rSecondly, it's important to remember that not everyone follows fansites closely, or saw the BlizzCon panels, or even the other Q&As. AK alt catchup is a great example - despite all of the other places we talked about what's happening in 7.1.5, it was still one of the most-asked questions. I'm glad that you had already heard about it, but clearly a lot of others had not, which made it absolutely worth answering.\r\rI do agree, though, that the Q&As work best when we either stick to broader topics, or focus the entire thing specifically on one topic (like we did with the Professions, PvP, etc. Q&As a few months ago). As a whole, it's a format we're still experimenting with. I can't promise they'll all be great, but I can promise that we'll learn from when they aren't.\r\rOn Interviews: Mostly agree, although it depends on the interviewer. You're not likely to see the hard-hitting questions coming from a major gaming publication, but you might from a community site, podcast, etc. Personally, I actually think we need a lot more interviews with those community sites, especially those that focus on more niche playstyles - it's a great way to get answers to those people without "wasting" everyone else's time.\r\rOn the forums: I actually completely agree with you here. Our forum presence sucks. It's a big issue that we're working to fix. That's part of why I'm here, posting this, and will continue to be around these forums as much as I can. Resolving this issue will take some time - if it can ever be completely resolved - but we're working on it.\r\rIt's worth mentioning that part of the issue - the general lack of dev posts - has been because they've been focusing as much of their time as possible into working on the game. Part of trying to keep patches coming at a good cadence means we need all hands on deck to get the work done, which means less time for the dev team to spend on the forums. That in turn means that, when the devs do get time for the forums, they spend the vast majority of it just reading, so they can absorb as much feedback as possible. So, the community team (including myself, but many others as well) need to step in to fill that gap, in a way that doesn't make you go "Ooh, a blue post! Ugh, it's just a CM." We haven't been, but we're going to.\r\rOn Reddit: I also like AMAs, and agree with your thoughts here. I do think that there are some topics where they might work much better than the Q&As, and while I don't want to say what those are for fear of over-promising, it's a cool idea that I'll circulate around.\r\rOn Patch Notes: I think a lot of the issues with patch notes are actually symptoms of some of the above issues. The designers' notes are definitely a good addition, but those are intended as little snippets of explanation for the player who doesn't really keep up with fansites, interviews, forums (well, when there's posts on them), etc. It shouldn't, whenever possible, be the first place that the person reading this thread heard about something, unless it really only needs a couple sentences to explain. If we need to give more detail, we should be doing that ahead of time and just referencing that explanation in the patch notes.\r\rWe've also heard loud and clear that you guys want PTR Patch Notes back. It's a tough situation for us to solve, though I don't think it's an unsolvable one. The PTR, especially under Legion's development structure, is much more experimental and incomplete than it's been in the past. Having official patch notes makes each individual change - any of which could be reverted at any point - feel a lot more "final" than they really are.\r\rOur approach for 7.1.5, then, was "let's focus on what it'll be when it's done" - that was clearly the wrong choice. Official PTR Patch Notes might not be the answer we need, but we definitely need a way to keep you more informed of what's happening, especially for class changes. Even something as simple as "Class Notes for PTR Build ABCXYZ" might fill the gap.\r\rAt any rate, thanks for this - it's given us a lot to think about. I know there's a big difference between saying we'll do better and actually doing better, but threads like this really help us actually improve things.\rThe one thing I should really say about this is the fact that you have ONE twitter account for EVERY form of feedback and question.\r\rWhy don't you like, delegate it out a bit? \r@WarcraftDevs\r@WarcraftHunters\r@WarcraftDK\r@WarcraftPvP\r@WarcraftRaid\r@warcraftdungeon\r@warcraftuselessquestionsthatpeopleonGDforumsaskoverandoverandover\ryou get the idea\rI think this would just get confusing really quickly, and lead directly into one of the issues the OP mentioned which is needing to follow too many channels at once.\rI have an idea for your Q&A that should get you the questions that people want answered most\r\rMake a thread about the Q&A first and specifically state that the most upvoted questions in this thread will be adressed\/responded to in the Q&A when it happens. Do this everytime you have a Q&A, that should help people get the questions they want to see and hopefully the answers they want to see\rWe briefly debated this early on but decided against it, for a few reasons:\r\r1) We don't always have an answer for something - if a highly-upvoted question is going to get "I don't know" or "We're not sure yet" as an answer, is that acceptable?\r\r2) Sometimes the answer lies in something we're not ready to talk about yet; for example, if "When will you add Demon Hunters" got a ton of upvotes prior to Legion's announcement, how do we handle that? Do we dodge the question (which says just as much as answering it)? Do we lie and say we have no such plans? There really isn't a good outcome there.\r\r3) It's pretty easily abused - if I want my question to be answered, it makes sense for me to ask all of my friends\/guildmates\/etc to upvote my question and downvote others, even if they don't care about the answer.\r\r4) It heavily favors playstyles or classes with the highest overall representation; it's likely for there to be entire aspects of the game we never talk about again just because there are going to be fewer people upvoting those questions.\r\rBecause of the above (and probably a couple other reasons I can't recall right now), we decided that our best approach was to just ignore upvotes\/downvotes entirely.\rYes, not only is it acceptable to say, 'We don't know," or "We aren't sure yet," but that kind of transparency is absolutely necessary for quality feedback and communication. Those are great jumping off points to get good feedback from the community. Of course, hopefully you would give us more than just those statements. Hopefully, you would explain why you haven't been able to come to a decision yet, what you perceive to be the pros and cons, and why it is so difficult to make that particular call and then MAYBE the community could help you actually make the decision. \r\rEven if our feedback won't help make the decision easier, understanding your thought process will make it easier to accept the decision once it is made.\rTo be clear: I agree that "we don't know yet" can be a good thing to say. I don't think a time-limited Q&A is the right place to do that - would rather spend that time on a question we actually have an answer for.\r\r\r\rIf you post feedback, that the devs cannot disprove you on, they reset the upvotes and leave you with downvotes. They just proved how incompetent they are.\r\rWe don't even have the ability to do that, sorry.\r\r\rTab Targeting\r\rSo, in 7.1, we actually reverted the tab targeting logic back to what it was prior to Patch 7.0. It should be functioning now exactly like it did during Warlords. I've personally found it much more reliable; if you're still having issues with it, did you have similar issues during Warlords?\r

Commentaires

Commentaire de Joshmaul

on 2016-12-12T18:56:48-06:00

I think the rep that's the big one for most people is Nightfallen - predominantly because the class hall armor set's shoulders require exalted. I get that they want you to work for it, but really, Nightfallen? Ugh.

Commentaire de drsleo

on 2016-12-12T19:05:39-06:00

tab targeting is not even close to how it was in wod, And honestly it's never been as bad as it is now, my opinion.

Commentaire de Gracejones

on 2016-12-12T19:31:40-06:00

The real issue, for me at least, with reputation this expansion is that so many profession recipes are rep gated. I like to have most of the professions active on my alts, but the rep grind for rank 3 recipes is awful. And having recipes drop in mythic-only or BG's is another topic entirely.

Commentaire de swlunatic

on 2016-12-12T19:38:26-06:00

How about a catchup for riding on alts? Wow and Legion are 1-time account purchases, so why can't the others as well? Throw some challenges into the mix if you feel it would too simple (in specific achievements like in WoD and Legion)

Commentaire de Belazor

on 2016-12-12T19:41:44-06:00

The problem is how unreliably you get the rep.\r\rIf you're one of those filthy pleb tier classes that dare to not have a tank spec, you're going to have a bad time in the training scenario unless you're extremely skilled at your class and you have plenty of CC. Blizzard themselves have stated that tank classes have it too easy in there compared to DPS, and being an average skilled player, nothing exceptional, it seems to match up with my personal experience. I had a very easy time as Guardian Druid in there, even with only 840ish ilvl.\r\rEven if you are a tank-capable class, your first X amount of runs are going to suck, depending on whether you have enough mana so you can get through enough mobs to get enough chests that week. You then repeat that for 1-3 runs until you have to start making blood sacrifices to RNGesus and pray he placed Leystalker Dro far enough away from you that you can clear the other rooms and get the other chests before going into Room 7 to face him. \rIf, like me on my Druid, you face him right out the door in the first corridor he can possibly spawn in, you're going to have a bad time if this is your first 1-2 runs.\r\rBut let's assume you have now fully cleared the training scenario of all its chests and can get 500+ score reliably, that's still only about 140 rep a day (480ish over 3 days). The WQs that spawn are very very unreliable, sometimes you get the 250 rep ones, sometimes you get the 50 rep ones.\r\rI realise that a lot of this can apply to the other factions as well, but it feels to me like there are more WQs up at any given time for the other factions vs. the Nightfallen, but that might just be my imagination.

Commentaire de Purgatorywolf

on 2016-12-12T19:41:58-06:00

Alts are all around more of a pain to deal with now then they used to be. Especially with the Work you have to put into Crafting to get anywhere.

Commentaire de SquirePip

on 2016-12-12T19:46:51-06:00

Alts are all around more of a pain to deal with now then they used to be. Especially with the Work you have to put into Crafting to get anywhere.

Alt's are a choice, if you can't do the same things you did for rep, gear, riding etc. you did for your main, don't make one. Alt's are easier now then they have ever been since they get more bonuses now to make em easier with world quests being unlocked for all and flying achieves now being acct wide. And in regards to the profession, Rank 1 recipes are fairly easy to optain, there is a big difference in being able to craft something and crafting it with less mats.

Commentaire de Monkeyking908

on 2016-12-12T19:58:31-06:00

let me counter his rep response with, if everything important is already unlocked account wide why should rep grinding be tedious for alts? if it is not important to get exulted on more then 1 toon then why not make it easier for those like me who like to (or by compulsions) want exulted on everyone? as for why its broken and needs fixing there are those bloody recipes that people need to get

Commentaire de rinkworks

on 2016-12-12T20:04:00-06:00

Alts are all around more of a pain to deal with now then they used to be. Especially with the Work you have to put into Crafting to get anywhere.\r\rAlt's are a choice, if you can't do the same things you did for rep, gear, riding etc. you did for your main, don't make one.\r\rA glib, unthinking, and unhelpful response. By that logic, any arbitrary part of the game could be poorly designed, and I could just say "You don't have to play that part of the game" if you complain about it.

Commentaire de Draccy

on 2016-12-12T20:04:53-06:00

Gotta love those analogies.Aside from plans, which some could find important for alts, and the order hall sets, not much else important is locked behind reputation, is it?Increased rep from Nightfallen and Warden WQs would be nice.

Commentaire de Tiechdair

on 2016-12-12T20:28:10-06:00

I actually liked the rep system from MoP, though I did think it was weird to get the upgrade token at revered. Sort of made exalted half the cost. Anyways, In WoD, you could at least grind killing stuff to get rep, not that I really enjoy that myself. But lets say we make every rep have the MoP token at exalted. That way, you have the grind, work, suffer, whatever to get to exalted, and then get the bonus. Or heck, why can't we use tabards to gain rep like in WotLK? The issue right now is honestly the gating I think. Example, lets say I have a job (I do) and I can only play on the weekends for any serious length of time. Well, we are locked at how much rep we can gain basically per day. I understand that gating is useful when the expansion comes out. It prevents people from getting everything in the first weekend and then complaining that there isn't anything new. However now that Legion has been out for a while, some people would like to be able to catch up. Also, rep in legion isn't just for crafting plans, but toys as well, for those who don't have the toy achievement mount. So basically, MoP would be the prefered method, but the best would be a combination of all. MoP token, Tabard rep, Mob grind, World Quest, Class hall mission.

Commentaire de Adamsm

on 2016-12-12T21:00:55-06:00

Even if they just made it so that as each patch comes out the rep increased by 25 to 50 percent for the world quests, that would help with catch up on alts. Or make it so that the alts get an increased rep increase based on the rep of your main; IE one character has Revered for a rep, so his alts get double or triple rep gains until it reaches the same level.

Commentaire de hotaru251

on 2016-12-12T21:03:52-06:00

I think the rep that's the big one for most people is Nightfallen - predominantly because the class hall armor set's shoulders require exalted. I get that they want you to work for it, but really, Nightfallen? Ugh.\r\rthat and profession stuff :|\r\rgame is NOT alt friendly. it takes hours to do WQ's and crap on multiple toons.

Commentaire de SilverDragon234

on 2016-12-12T21:07:23-06:00

I think the rep that's the big one for most people is Nightfallen - predominantly because the class hall armor set's shoulders require exalted. I get that they want you to work for it, but really, Nightfallen? Ugh. They need lovings too, you know.

Commentaire de avatarofshadow

on 2016-12-12T21:26:17-06:00

Can't you do the rep thing just because we'd like you to and you've done it before ? Does it have to be a big debate as to WHY we want rep for our alts ? \r\rI mean, if my roof was leaking, and I asked a professional roofer, who fixes roofs for a living, to fix the roof, please, he wouldn't ask me WHY I'd like my roof fixed. He wouldn't start a debate as to whether or not I've looked into the value of a wet floor. He wouldn't offer to show me some nice buckets. He'd just tell me when he'd be able to get around to fixing the leak, like I asked. \r\rSince you like analogies.

Commentaire de avatarofshadow

on 2016-12-12T21:28:43-06:00

If rep on alts doesn't matter, then make rep account-wide and just end the whole debate. As per your analogy, this would be like moving to a place where the weather is always nice, so it doesn't matter if there's a hole in your roof or not.

Commentaire de Ainyan

on 2016-12-12T21:45:20-06:00

For me, it's rep for crafting + rep for the Order Hall sets. Frankly, crafting shouldn't be locked behind exalted and order hall sets should unlock for all characters once you've unlocked a complete set on one. By the time you unlock every piece on your alts, you've far surpassed any need for it.

Commentaire de Jdamoyf

on 2016-12-12T21:48:13-06:00

I think the rep that's the big one for most people is Nightfallen - predominantly because the class hall armor set's shoulders require exalted. I get that they want you to work for it, but really, Nightfallen? Ugh.\r\rI agree. On both of my toons, an 850 shoulder piece is a downgrade. Why do we get it so late? On the other hand, I guess I am forgetting that perhaps my own personal experience is not indicative of the rest of the community's. Maybe there's a good number of folks who see that as an upgrade? I don't know.

Commentaire de Stormwander

on 2016-12-12T22:15:13-06:00

For me the reputation is for profession recipes. Yes, professions are generally pointless (gear-wise I mean) as by the time you even get the recipes you have long since outstripped any need for these items. They can be used for alts, yes, but alts are now such a grind with the world quests and artifact power that it's hard to find the time to progress them at all. Unfortunately I'm a completionist and have this OCD compulsion to get all the recipes available. I really don't want to grind exalted on alts that I don't have time for anyway. \r\rAdmittedly I have 33 alts. \/shame. I don't wanna talk about it.

Commentaire de Sielinth

on 2016-12-12T22:17:26-06:00

rep for order hall armor is my main issue with the rep system currently\r\ralthough even in beta i questioned under what scenario would anybody actually use ~50% of the set (the number is close to 3\/8 since you can technically complete your order hall after 3 days of reaching 110)\r\rthe requirements are so stupidly high that by the time you reach it you would have exceeded the gear's default ilevel